


The Warden and the Crow

by VendelynSilverhawk



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, HoF meets Inquisitor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Lavellan/Solas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 10:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15604434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VendelynSilverhawk/pseuds/VendelynSilverhawk
Summary: Vignettes from the life of Shae Tabris, Hero of Fereldan. Adventures with Zevran, cute one-shots, Tabris meeting the Inquisitor, etc.





	1. The Hurt/Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> Tabris is my favorite DA:O origin, it's the first one I played, and dammit if I didn't carry around Nelros' golden wedding ring for the entire game even when I kept running out of inventory space.   
> There's a loose narrative here but there are frequent time-skips, not all of the scenes are connected, and it's really more of a series of snapshots than a full story. It will act as my frequent dumping ground for all things Zevran/Tabris. I try to be as general as possible when it comes to the HoF and Inquisitor, but of course aspects of my personal gameplay will come into it.

He lost track of her in the throng of battle, their dual blades spinning, fine Antivan craftsmanship that had saved lives and taken them in equal measure. Her absence didn’t trouble him, since she was the Hero of Fereldan _and_ one of the most formidable assassins of the age. She could hold her own in a battle, and afterwards they would celebrate a job well done.

               A genlock screamed when Zevran buried his blade in its eye and yanked it back out. Yes, his paramour could hold her own, she could-

               Wait.

               Through the surging throngs of darkspawn he saw her figure halt, knives raised, as the arrow split the armor over her chest, appearing quick as lightning where there was no arrow before.

               She was falling, the ruby earring he’d given her glinting like a star.

               “ _Shae_!”

               Another arrow sprouted from her shoulder, and he spotted the hurlock firing from an outcropping just above them. His knife spun through the air and the darkspawn fell, but another smelled blood and was already approaching Shae where she’d fallen to her knees. It raised its sword.

*

_Earlier_

“So Thedas once again has need of you,” he sighed, looking over her shoulder at the letter in his lover’s hands. The raven that delivered it was still perched on her wrist, talons digging into her lick leather glove, and it looked at Zevran with a familiar sort of menace. Something about Leliana’s birds was unmistakable, the spymaster’s touch evident in their training and behavior.

               “When doesn’t it?” she sighed, tone dark, the hand that held the letter tensing until stress lines appeared in the parchment, warping Leliana’s impeccable penmanship. “I suppose the search will have to wait.”

               “ _Mi amore_ , no- I can go-”

               “No.”

               There would be no negotiating on this then, he could tell. Tabris tore apart the letter and stomped it into the muddy earth until there was nothing left, then pulled the grey warden crest from around her neck. The raven stood perfectly still as she wound the necklace tight around its foot.

               “To your mistress,” she commanded. The raven launched into the sky and vanished in the upward grey clouds.

               Zevran placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and she finally let herself lean in, shoulders fitting against his like they were tailor-made for each other. She looked so tired.

               “You are sure? If Leliana knew what we are doing, she would understand if only I go,” he said. Tabris sighed.

               “The Inquisition is too important, Zevran, and you know she wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t important.”

               “Curing the Calling is also important,” he pointed out, punctuating it with a kiss to her forehead, their complementary height meaning she had to duck slightly. It had the dual effect of hiding the sudden darkness that fell across her delicate features. “I do not fancy losing you to the Blight any time soon.”

               “You won’t. I have time, Zevran. _We_ have time.”

               “Then indulge me?”

               She looked up at him with level eyes the color of heather, and he had to hold her gaze. Even after all this time she still amazed him, and their many years together only increased her fierce drive to protect what she considered hers. Their scattered friends from the first Blight, her mabari Aegis, the ring she still wore on a chain around her neck … so much duty for such slim shoulders, now the Inquisition added to it, while the Blight burned in her veins.

               His iron-willed lover. He wanted more than these past ten years with her; he wanted a lifetime. Which he was increasingly afraid he wouldn’t get, if Thedas kept pulling them away from each other.

               “Fine,” she said at last, squeezing his hand. “We’ll finish this lead, then go. Together.”

               Together, yes, together always, the Crow and the Warden.

*

_“Together.”_

               Aegis mauled a hurlock before it could get close to his mistress, and Zevran slipped between the legs of another, scissoring open rough grey flesh with a yell. He was finally at her side.

               “Shae? _Mi amore_?”

               Her braid was undone, brown hair in bloody tangles around her face, pale as a corpse as rain sluiced down her waxy cheeks, lips parted in a breath she couldn’t get past the arrow in her chest, her shoulder, lodged between her ribs, their thick shafts and black fletching as evil as the darkspawn that made them. When his hand came to brace her shoulder she swayed into him. That was when he saw the fourth arrow in her thigh.

               No. No no no no. They promised. Together always, always together.

               They found each other during the Blight, they fought an archdemon together, they took on the Antivan Crows, they rebuilt the Southern Wardens, they were going to find a cure for the Calling-

               Zevran hurled a knife into the chest of the last darkspawn and, as the blade sailed from his hand, felt absolutely nothing.

               “Shae…. Shae, you must stay with me. We have things to do and people to kill, remember?” he said as he methodically broke the arrow shafts so he could lean her against a nearby tree. “Thedas needs you.”

               Her breath came in short, panicked gasps. There was so much blood and it was still raining freely on them both, on the corpses of the darkspawn ambush Tabris had sensed and said they could handle.

               “Zev-ran…”

               “Stay awake!” he commanded. “Stay awake, Shae! _I_ need you too, remember?”

               He got a tired almost-smile.

               “Promised not to- leave you.”

               “That’s right, and I’m not about to let you break a promise.”

*

_Earlier_

“I miss the good old days. Parties throughout the night, fine clothes, silk pillows, good pay, steady jobs… No dawkspawn trying to kill us,” Zevran mused as he picked his way across the rocks. Ahead of him Tabris did the same on feet just as light, though their training had been considerably different- alienages and the tutelage of assassins were both cruel in their own ways, though only one was intentional in growing adept murderers.

               “Darkspawn are always trying to kill me,” she called back. Then in one deft motion she pulled herself up on an outcropping and dropped her pack.

               “Soon we will change that,” Zevran said. Tabris looked away, but he could see her profile against the fading light and knew how hard she was trying to bury an expression of hope. There were precious few times when life was kind to either of them, though Zevran had learned to let his heart feel more than it had in early years. Tabris still hadn’t let down her great castle walls all the way. He only got glimpses- more, when they were with Wynne or Alistair, when they searched for Morrigan and found her briefly, only for Tabris’s heart to break again.

               “Maybe,” she murmured.

               _Maybe_. Zevran snorted. They _would_ cure the Calling, whatever it took. They already had years of searching behind them and he was willing to give more. Anything to have more time with her. Even if it killed him, she could have a life. She deserved that much.

               She deserved everything.

               “Look!” her cry tore his attention, gaze skipping up her lithe form to where she pointed at the sky, a dark shape descending to alight upon her arm.

His heart sank.

*

“Don’t go, don’t go!” he begged. There was blood on his hands, on her blue and grey armor, and it was so hot leaving her body that it steamed in the frigid rain. “ _Cara mia, mi amore_ , Maker no…”

               Her breath came and went falteringly now. When he pressed a hand over her chest he could feel the staccato beat of her heart as it lost the battle. With his other hand he held up her face, pale as death, rain washing away the darkspawn blood even as he replaced it with her own, printed from his fingers.

               “Didn’t- l-lo-ok,” she coughed, followed by a cough that spit blood onto his forehead. “Faster. N-ext ti-i-ime-!” breaking off with a whine of pain, one of her hands lifted to scrabble at the arrow in her gut, but her twitching fingers only knocked it further into her flesh. There was a cut-off scream. He thought it was going to tear his heart to pieces.

               “Of course you will be,” Zevran murmured. “There is no-one faster than the great Shae Tabris, yes? But now you must not think of such things- just hold on, alright?”

               Shaking fingers brushed his cheek, following the lines of his tattoos. He could feel the blood left behind. She smiled weakly, lips drained of color. Her eyes looked like bruises. The tips of her ears were turning blue.

               “You’re a fighter.”

               He wanted to throw his head back and scream. He wanted to curl into her and muffle his sobs against her bleeding stomach. He wanted some numbing release from this feeling like shards of glass being pressed into his skin. Worse than any torture the Crows ever inflicted.

               “You’re a fighter.” He dug his knees into the ground, wrapped his arms around her, and lifted with all his strength. Even with her armor Tabris was light, but fatigue and heavy darkspawn arrows made her a burden while he also carried their pack. Maneuvering carefully, he let the pack fall to the earth and whistled for Aegis. “Carry this if you can, or stay and guard it, and I will return for you.”

               The mabari looked at his mistress and whined, but Zevran was already moving, not turning to see if the hound would follow.

*

He carried her all the way to the nearest village, terrified, her blood soaking his leather armor, each movement of her body digging the arrows deeper into her flesh, each drop of rain catching cold into them. He needed her to live. He needed her to live.

               _Cara mia, blessed Andraste, do not take her from me._

               Rain slipped over her closed eyes and beaded in her lashes. Blood drip drip dripped in a river behind them. Aegis whined, nudging his mistress’ limp hand, paying no mind to the fact that he was carrying both their packs.

               Lights in the distance, silhouettes in the dark, and Zevran was running, pounding on a door with his boot, the sign of a crown and bone swinging above him.

               “ _Maledizione_! Open up, you dog-lord-”

               “What’s all the racket?” the inn door swung open, an old woman peering out in the rainy night until her gaze fell on Zevran and the dying woman in his arms. “Oh no- I don’t want no trouble-”

               “This is the Warden-Commander of Fereldan, Hero of the Fifth Blight, and if you don’t help her I swear I will send you to the Maker myself,” Zevran spat. He was shaking but his voice, miraculously, was steady, and he watched as the old woman realized just what armor Tabris was wearing.

               “Gryff, fetch the apothecary!” she cried, ushering Zevran inside and quickly closing the door.

               The inn was warm and smelled like hardy Fereldan food, a few people milling about drinking, talking, one absently strumming a lute in the other corner by the fire. It was as far removed from the battle and storm outside, so peaceful it made Zevran want to scream.

               “Don’t just stand there- go!” the woman yelled to the boy sitting by the fire. “This is the Hero of Fereldan bleeding out in my inn!”

               She led Zevran up the stairs to a small room and hastily motioned for him to set her on the bed, hands shaking eyes wide. Tabris’s braid slipped to the floor, and her face turned to the light as she let out a small moan. The innkeep gasped, reaching to touch the grey warden crest over her heart.

               “Maker preserve me… it is her,” she breathed. Zevran rounded on her.

               “It won’t be if you keep staring!” he snapped. “She is _dying_ you foolish-”

               “Is it true?” Another voice, the slam of the door, a figure towering, a tall woman with Chasind tattoos on each cheek and a satchel thrown over her shoulders.

               After that, it was all a blur.

*

Fever had ravaged her body, draining her face of color and alternately flushing it red as the blood that continually stained her bandages. The apothecary had done all she could- now Zevran could only wait, and pray to the Maker that this was not the end.

               It couldn’t happen like this- loud and slow and undignified. This wasn’t how Heroes were supposed to die.

               “Nel-ros…” the name dragged from her lips and hit Zevran like a knife to the chest. “Ne-el-ro-os…” It was barely there, she was so weak, more a feeble push of sound than a true articulation past chapped lips, waxy face twitching back and forth, hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. Her hand tightened in his and loosened.

               Nelros.

               Zevran could still remember the day she finally told him about how she was recruited to the wardens, explained the ring she never took off the chain around her neck. The whole miserable business of it, which once had been hers to carry, had become their shared burden. But she was trapped in the Fade, tormented by nightmares, and there was nothing he could do to help her.

               “ _Mi amore_ , come back,” he murmured, kissing her hand, pressing it between his own. The little inn room felt so small with just the two of them, and at the same time impossibly vast. It was too much for him, the thought of her slipping away. Now. Here. “Come back to me.”

               _“My father and I were well off, as far as alienages go, so when it came time for me to marry he was able to secure a blacksmith’s apprentice from Highever. I would have to leave Denerim after the wedding, of course, but we both knew that Highever’s alienage was safer, and with a husband I would have a chance at safety,” she explains, turning the ring back and forth in her hands and not looking at Zevran, hazel eyes lingering just over his shoulder at something inconsequential._

_He’s never see her look so remote before. Then, she’s never spoken of her past before, either. Not during the Blight, not while she rebuilt Amaranthine and he took on the Crows, not even in the months following their reunion in Antiva when she officially left the Grey Wardens. He isn’t sure what makes today special, but he isn’t going to risk a question that might spook her. He knows a thing or two about troubled pasts._

_“The day came, and I… I didn’t know what to feel. I had packed my last keepsakes of my mother’s, I was wearing a brand new dress, the nicest thing I’d ever owned… when my cousin Shianni told me that my betrothed had arrived, and that he was handsome, I think… I felt hope. He was kind, even though we were strangers. He promised that he would spend his whole life making sure I was happy…”_

_“The ring you wear- it was his?” Zevran asks gently. The golden circle stills in her hands, and her eyes fall shut with a sigh._

_“Yes. He never got the chance to give it to me.”_

_“What happened?”_

_She looks at him squarely this time, and doesn’t flinch at a single, horrifying detail, though as each word falls Zevran suddenly feels his understanding of his lover grow as it never has before._

_“The son of the arl, Vaughn”- a name said with enough poison to kill a high dragon- “decided to seek some fun in the alienage. He took me, he took Shianni, he took my cousin Soris’ betrothed, and another girl, and we were powerless to stop him. I didn’t even try to fight back- I told him we’d come quietly, because I didn’t want to see anyone get hurt.”_

_The idea of his paramour going quietly with anyone, especially a shemlen man, is more foreign than the idea of kissing a darkspawn._

_“His guards killed one girl, Nola, because she couldn’t stop weeping. He raped Shianni. And when Soris and Nelros came to rescue us, Nelros was cut down like he meant nothing. I could only stop long enough to take his sword, and… find the ring. He risked everything to rescue a stranger, and he died for it.”_

_“Vaughn?”_

_“Dead. I cut his throat, and his guards, and I was ready to fight my way out of Denerim when Duncan saved me from justice and recruited me. Vaughn is the first man I ever killed. I don’t regret it.”_

               His fearsome, iron-willed Shae, widowed before her wedding even happened, had clung on to the hatred she felt for Vaughn, and the righteous fury for those he hurt, and never let them go. Even now he could see that dark history flash behind her eyes each time she killed a mark or a darkspawn. Knowing where she came from had only opened his eyes to why she was the way she was, why it had taken so long for her to trust him, and why she wore the ruby-gold earring he’d given her like it was more precious than any marriage certificate.

               No, he didn’t begrudge Nelros a place in Tabris’s heart, the poor fool. If it hadn’t been for his bravery Zevran might never have met Tabris, and she never would have grown into the lion she is.

               He hadn’t prayed in so long.

               “ _Blessed are those who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter- blessed are the peacekeepers…”_

*

When she woke, he quickly cleaned his face of tear tracks, took her hands, and smiled as though she had only been taking a nap, and not dying.

               As though his heart didn’t break each time her breath hesitated, or her face paled. As though he barely noticed at all that she was gone.

               “Good morning,” he murmured, resting a hand gently against her wasted cheek. She sighed. Smiled. Leaned in.

               “I’m glad it wasn’t all a dream.”

               “Hm?”

               She blinked and her green eyes were big as the moon fading outside. When she shifted she winced and settled down again.

               “I thought I was about to wake up in a cell for the murder of a noble. That Duncan, and the Blight…” she trailed off, eyes growing dim as she sighed deeper into the bed. She was wearier than Zevran had ever seen her.

               “It was not a dream,” he murmured, and kissed her hand, clutched between his own perhaps tighter than it should have been.

               “No,” she smiled. “I don’t think I ever could have dreamed you.”

               “I’m too devilishly handsome, even for your imagination.” He winced salaciously and was gratified by her laugh, though it stopped as soon as it began when she gave a bit-off yell of pain and pressed a hand over her ribs.

               “You’re a pain in my arse, is what you are,” she panted. He kissed her hand again, then reached out to push a tendril of her hair behind one pointed ear, fingers brushing the ruby earring.

               “But I’m yours.”

               “I don’t think I could get rid of you if I tried.”

               “Hey! I saved your life, you know,” he said indignantly. It earned him another smile- he’d tell as many stupid, self-deprecating jokes about himself as it took if they could keep her smiling.

               “You did.” She reached up with her free hand and traced the tattoo on his cheek, a wistful look in her eyes. “I love you, Zevran.”

               He was floored.

               _I love you._

He could count on one hand the number of time he had heard that from her, though he said it all the time, as much as he could, perhaps to a ridiculous degree.

               “Shae,” he said grimly, leaning forward, pressing his thumb into her cheek, feeling involuntary tears well up- Maker, this was embarrassing, but he didn’t care, he didn’t have to hide emotions anymore and he would never hide them from her, not when she needed him to be there. “I will _always_ be here for you, even in your dreams I will find you, you understand? I would storm the gates of the Black City itself to bring you back to me.”

               “Showoff,” she muttered, but two glittering tears still slipped down from her cheeks, and he knew they were as much from the pain of her wounds as anything he’d said but it still made his chest ache. They had been so close- _so_ close, to losing each other. The shadow of death lingered too close for comfort, and they were the kind of people who regularly toyed with death.

               “Incurable, I’m afraid,” he grinned. Then he rested his head on the side of the bed, right next to her side, and tucked her hands against his chest. They breathed quietly for a moment, before she freed one hand and rested it gently on his head.

               “Stay with me,” she said, so low he could barely hear. “Please.”

               He closed his eyes.

               “Always.”


	2. Hero of Fereldan at Skyhold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tabris meets one of my many Inquisitors, Kolvehnan Lavellan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote this like, three years ago? And the point of view changes as well as the tense, but I'm too lazy to change it so... have some OCD-triggering shit.  
>  *throws glitter*. 
> 
> (there is some minor Solas/Lavellan in this chapter)

They arrived at Skyhold two weeks later, Tabris still wrapped in bandages and badly injured but too stubborn to keep resting in one place. She hadn’t been happy that Zevran told the town they found refuge in that she was the Hero of Fereldan, but it was the only way he could get help so quickly, being a dangerous-looking knife-ear in the middle of backwater Fereldan. As soon as the apothecary realized that the elf woman in bloody grey raiment was the Hero she’d been all too quick to help. So had the innkeeper, and the baker, and the smith who repaired their things. They had saved Tabris’s life, but Zevran knew that somewhere in her heart she was still angry- at being exposed, at the fact that if she had just been a random elf, none of the townsfolk would have lifted a finger, at least not for free.

               Zevran was of the opinion that as long as they were both alive, the “how” was inconsequential. Still, it was at once a relief and a disappointment to have Tabris back to her usual, reserved self. It was familiar in a way that comforted him to see her knife-sharp cheeks and stubborn mouth set in their usual places, but it was sad to see her eyes close again as she withdrew her heart, even, to some extent, from him. It was her only way of protecting herself against the world, he knew, but it didn’t mean he would abandon all attempts to coax that vulnerability out of her.

               A laugh here, a smile there, a joke that had her wincing in pain as she doubled over her stitches. It all ended the moment the gates of Skyhold finally loomed before them.

               With grim determination Tabris showed her Warden’s crest to the sentry, and watched her eyes widen in shock before she remembered herself and rushed to let the Hero of the Fifth Blight through.

               “Warden-Commander,” she said, bowing deeply as they passed, heavy Orlesian accent lending a levity to the title that they never got in Fereldan, where Tabris was either venerated as a hero or spat on as the woman who killed the Hero of Riverdane. Eyes followed them as they made their way from the courtyard to the great hall, but Zevran saw true recognition in very few of them. Tabris wasn’t one to publicize herself, so to the rest of the world the Hero of Fereldan was just an elf, with no particular identifying feature besides the grey warden armor that she shared with countless others. Zevran was slightly more conspicuous, but no-one stopped them on their way or called out to their guide. He thanked the Maker for little mercies. Then they stepped into the hall and his prayer fell silent.

*

An imposing throne with spikes that cast long shadows, a dalish elf with silver air and an aura of lightning, a trio of human advisors watching a woman in rich dress be dragged away, sobbing in a thick Orlesian accent. A hall packed with masked nobles who eyed the two elves like hungry wolves. Zevran didn’t like it at all, and he liked it even less when their path was blocked by a human man almost twice his height, with armor and astern expression.

               “Lieutenant Cochran, what is this?” he asked, not looking at Tabris or Zevran as he addressed their guide. Before the woman could respond there was a flash of white behind the imposing man. The elf from the throne appeared just behind him, though the dark-skinned woman in gold raiment had tried to hustle her into a side room.

               “What’s this?” she asked, glancing at the man who, Zevran thought somewhat ridiculously, very closely resembled a disgruntled lion.

               “I was just asking the same thing myself, Inquisitor,” he said, looking down at her. “Cochran?”

               “Commander, this is-” the poor man didn’t get another word out before the Commander’s eyes widened. They were trained on Tabris.

               “Warden-Commander?” he breathed. He waved the soldier away and took a closer, disbelieving look at Tabris. Zevran moved to hover protectively behind her.

               “Cullen,” his beloved said shortly. Zevran wracked his brain, trying to remember when they’d ever met this man. Tabris’s eyes were narrow and her tense shoulders betrayed her unease. She looked so breakable in front of this armored behemoth.

“You two know each other?” the elf at Cullen’s side asked, her silver eyebrows raised. Cullen and Tabris didn’t break eye contact.

               “You could say that,” Tabris said at length, but Cullen frowned, finally turning to the Inquisitor- for this dalish elf who everyone treated with such deference, and who had a moment ago occupied the only throne in the room, could be no-one _but_ the Inquisitor.

               “More than that- you remember what I told you, about… what happened to me in the Fereldan Circle? The Warden-Commander is the one who rescued me, and restored order to the tower. She is the only reason I’m alive today,” Cullen explained.

               “I just did what I needed to do.”

               Inquisitor looked from Commander to Warden, then back, and finally at Zevran. He recognized his cue to step in.

               “Yes… I’m sure no-one is too eager to recount that story in any detail,” he said lightly, placing a hand on Tabris’s back. “I, for one, am exhausted.”

               “Of course! I’m sorry- I didn’t even think about the length of your journey,” the Inquisitor said. “It’s just- well, we were expecting you almost a fortnite ago, and last we heard you’d gone _missing_.”

               Tabris raised an eyebrow, and Zevran chuckled. “We were somewhat delayed. But we are here now.”

               “So you are,” the Inquisitor said. She was tall for an elf, her silvery hair shaved on one side to show off the curling vallaslin that spread across her face. She wore a simple leather outfit in gentle greens and greys. “Cullen, will you clear the hall for me, please?”

               Cullen instantly deferred to her, and Zevran noted with amusement the way he followed her figure as she retreated back towards her throne, motioning for Tabris and Zebran to follow.

*

The two figures are several inches shorter than her, both wearing dark clothes with feathered shoulders, and hoods that effectively seal their faces in shadow. Still, Lavellan knows who they are now.

               Shae Tabris, grey warden, Hero of Fereldan, erstwhile assassin, and Zevran Arainai, ex-Antivan Crow and veteran of the Battle of Denerim during the Blight.

               Lavellan’s hand tightens around her staff even though Leliana told her that they’re here to help, to offer the Inquisition their skills. After having been thoroughly brief on Tabris and Zevran’s “skills” she has absolutely no desire to have them here at all. Still, it isn’t as though she can turn them away.

               “Welcome to Skyhold, Warden Tabris,” she says, certain that her voice betrays her uncertainty. “Zevran Aranai.”

               “It’s ex-Warden, actually,” Tabris says as she draws back her hood. Her face, now that Lavellan can see it, is a true surprise. Surprising in that there is nothing remarkable about it at all. Mouse-brown hair has been pulled into a short tail, not a hair out of place, and her eyes while sharp and clear are nothing to write poems about. Despite moving with a predator’s certainty- a carriage that makes it impossible to take her for anything less than dangerous- and the curving knives at her belt, her face seems designed to blend in as nothing more than average, perhaps pretty in the right light or homely if twisted at just the right angle.

               “I didn’t know Grey Wardens could quit,” Lavellan remarks. Tabris’ smile is light and empty.

               “I still have the taint, but since I report to no Warden-Commander and have never set foot in Weisshaupt, technically I’m a deserter. If that’s a great problem, then no-one has been brave enough to tell me yet.”

               At Tabris’ side Zevran chuckles, and lowers his own hood. He is as Leliana described- pale blonde hair, dark honeyed skin, devastatingly  handsome in the way a purring cat is just before it bites you with intent for blood. Two swirling tattoos on each cheek, and knives of his own strapped to his back.

               “Our reputation now is largely one of fear,” Zevran says in heavily-accented Common. “And Alistair has presumably made her desertation a non-issue. At least, in Fereldan.”

               “I assume that won’t be an issue here, either?” Tabris crosses her arms over a snug black tunic, crossed with leather straps and identical to Zevran’s ensemble right down to the boots. “I hear you have a Grey Warden among your company.”

               “If Blackwall has a problem with you, tell me and I’ll take care of it, but while you’re here you’re an honored guest, and the Inquisition appreciates your generosity.” More like willingness to kill, threaten, and stalk people free of charge.

               Zevran laughs as if he knows exactly what she’s thinking and winds a carefree arm around Tabris’ waist. “What my love was actually saying, is that her tolerance for anyone- particularly human men- insulting her or in any way telling her what to do has hit rock bottom. The question of your Grey Warden was in regards to his continued physical well being, not hers.”

               “You may be here to help us, but I won’t let you hurt my people,” Lavellan begins, only for Tabris to frown deeply.

               “As long as your people don’t hurt me.” Tabris’ voice promises violent ends for someone who crosses her, and her tone carries the undercurrent of someone who takes at least some small measure of delight in those violent ends. Still, Leliana did tell LAvellan that Tabris isn’t one to start a fight without just cause. Assassin the short elf might be, but not corrupt. At least, Lavellan hopes not.

               _“Tabris… had a difficult life, and only after the Blight did it begin to improve. As a consequence she must rely heavily on her skills to keep her safe.”_

_“I understand that, Leliana, but she has a reputation. Josephine told me-”_

_“That she is an assassin? She is, but she does not kill at random, Inquisitor. She simply accepts a different reality than you or I- a reality in which death and violence are as natural as breathing. That violence has saved her life more times than I can count.”_

_“I trust you, Leliana. I just have a hard time trusting someone who kills people for a living.”_

_“Technically, most of the people in the Inquisition do that, including us.”_

_“But we don’t take pleasure in it, and we certainly don’t do it for money!”_

_“Once you meet her, you will understand.”_

“Shae?” Alistair’s voice pulls Lavellan from her reverie, and she blinks as the warden strides through the great hall. Then he envelopes Tabris in a bear hug that displays precisely how small she is- even by the standards of their people- and lifts her off the ground with a laugh. “Shae! Maker’s breath, I thought you fell off the face of the earth!”

               “Alistair? Leliana didn’t tell me you were here!” The woman Lavellan sees now is nothing at all like the reserved assassin who first entered the hall. In Alistair’s arms even her black raiment seems to brighten, and the smile on her face is one of pure, innocent joy.

               “I only arrived a few days ago, but- why are you here? I thought you were out looking for a cute?” Alistair asks as he lowers her gently to the ground. Then it’s his turn to welcome Zevran, which comes in the form of clasped forearms and a brief but enthusiastic hug from Alistair, visciously protested by Zevran, who suddenly resembles a very angry cat.

               “I am,” Tabris says once the welcome is complete. Lavellan finds, up on her Inquisitor’s throne- a prop she still strongly objects to- that she’s glad the three have suddenly forgotten her presence. Elves Tabris and Zevran may be, but they are entirely different creatures from Lavellan. “Leliana wrote that she could use Zevran and I, though, and my investigation can wait. The end of our world is slightly more important than curing the Calling.”

               “‘Slightly’?” Alistair raises an eyebrow.

               “Slightly.” There is no humor in Tabris’ voice. “The imminent assassination of Empress Celene is our priority.”

               “Ah. You know, I did hear something about you stirring up trouble in Orlais… and Antiva… and Nevarra…” Tabris grins at Alistair, and it’s the third time Lavellan has seen her become an entirely different person in the same span of minutes. This one is proud and cold.

               “And Fereldan,” Zevran says smugly. “I wager you are very glad now that it is not you on the throne.”

               “You have no idea,” Alistair sighs. “Although lately I’ve been wondering if it wouldn’t be easier than dealing with all of this. The Landsmeet seems simple in comparison.”

               “It’s a bad time to be a warden,” Tabris agrees.

               “It’s a bad time to be breathing, really. Shae and I have fixed that problem for several people recently, in fact.”

               “Sometimes I think you like your job a little too much,” Alistair says, and Lavellan smiles almost in spite of herself. Her acquaintance with Alistair has been brief, but he has above all things a good heart, and isn’t as daft as he seemed at first glance. Realizing that these two fearsome elves are some of his oldest friends is oddly sweet, despite the dark banter.

               Zevran shrugs. “I merely use the tools given to me. Limited as they are.”

               “I wouldn’t say ‘limited’,” Tabris says slyly, and allows her gloved hand to drift from his cheek to his chest suggestively. The Antivan’s grin is utterly salacious as Alistair blushes cherry red.

               “Really?” he squeaks, illiciting another warm laugh from Tabris. An elf of infinite contradictions. Lavellan can’t understand how she manages to be so many people at once. Feared assassin, amused friend, shameless lover, jaded hero. Lavellan can barely manage being herself, let alone Inquisitor on top of that, much as she tries to make them the same person. “You’re really going to- _here_?”

               “You’re as squeamish as ever!” Tabris exclaims. “Don’t tell me you haven’t… since Morrigan? Really?”

               Lavellan decides she should probably step in before Alistair melts completely. And before she learns entirely more than she wants to.

               “Alistair,” Lavellan says lightly, but her voice carries in the large room and the Grey Warden turns to her eagerly as an escape from Tabris’ line of questioning.

               “Inquisitor! So sorry- I heard your meet-and-greet with the Hero of Fereldan would involve cheeses, and I couldn’t resist,” he says, beaming at her as the blush recedes.

               “You haven’t changed at all, have you?” Zevran asks sardonically. Alistair pretends to look hurt for all of two seconds.

               “Neither of you have, it seems.”

               Before Lavellan can break in again, another side door opens. This time it’s Solas, staff on his back and a book in one hand. As soon as he catches sight of the small gathering of Blight veterans, however, he pauses.

               “I’m sorry. I have interrupted you, Inquisitor.” He bows deeply, and Lavellan frowns. She’s told all of her travelling companions not to do that. Solas isn’t one to ignore her express wishes, but right now his every movement is in deference to her.

               “Solas-”

               “You aren’t Dalish,” Tabris observed suddenly, looking past Alistair and Zevran to stare at Solas. “But you’re no city elf, either.”

               His expression is carefully neutral. “I fall somewhere in-between, yes. I serve the Inquisitioon where I can.”

               “He’s my friend and advisor,” Lavellan says.

               “As if an elven Inquisitor wasn’t enough…” Tabris muses, eyes narrow.

               “What do you mean?” Alistair looks down at Tabris in surprise.

               “When I heard the Herald of Andraste was a Dalish elf, I thought it was a joke. Surely the Chantry wouldn’t let such a one lead the Inquisition,” Tabris explains. “Now I realize they’ve let elves be ‘advisors’ too. Forgive me for being skeptical of it all.”

               “The Chantry has nothing to do with the Inquisition, and no-one here has a problem with elves,” Lavellan says. _Except Sera, maybe._ Tabris looks unimpressed.

               “Everyone has a problem with elves.”

               “Even you, apparently.” Lavellan leans forward on the throne without thinking. Tabris’ expression is unyielding.

               “Alienage elves are weak, Dalish elves are proud to the point of blindness, dwarves care about nothing but rocks, and human superiority will be the death of Thedas,” Tabris said with unwavering confidence. Lavellan blinks in shock. “I have a problem with everyone.”

               “So what should we do? Should we all just become spirits?” Lavellan exclaims, anger zipping through her like lightening as her fists tighten on the armrests of the throne.

               “Or assassins,” Zevran offers helpfully.

               “Leliana told me that you were here to help, but so far all you’ve done is show that you don’t trust us. I don’t understand; why did you come at all?” Lavellan rises, and it isn’t lost on her that she’s two feet taller than everyone else up on the dais, even Alistair. As she makes her way down Tabris put both hands on the knives at her belt, while Alistair looks at her in concern. Zevran, unruffled as when they first arrived, places a hand on Tabris’ shoulder.

               “I came because a friend asked me to,” Tabris says. “But you’re right; I don’t trust you, because I don’t know you and no matter what Leliana told you, you don’t know me.”

               “Then tell me,” Lavellan murmurs. Solas’ hand eases off his staff; she hadn’t even noticed he was preparing to move it from his back. “I can’t work with people I don’t trust.”

               And that- that makes Tabris pause.

               “You trust everyone here? All of your advisors, all of you companions- despite what they are, you have no reservations putting your life in their hands?” she asks incredulously.

               “Yes,” Lavellan replies. Easily, as though trust is natural and she never once believed that she would live and die alone, believed it not with sadness but resignation.

               “Then your Inquisition is as professive as Leliana said… or you are a greater fool than you seem.” At Tabris’ words all of the tension in the room seems to drain from the air. Suddenly they are no more than five people, standing in an empty hall.

               “This place isn’t like the rest of Thedas,” Alistair murmurs, and lifts a hand up as if to touch her in comfort. Instead he lets it hover just above her feathered shoulder, settle for the span of a heartbeat, and then draws it back. Tabris relaxes.

               “We’ll see.” The Hero of Fereldan gives Lavellan one last, inscruitable look before turning and vanishing from the hall, silent footsteps carrying her out and into the blinding afternoon light.

               Alistair follows almost immediately after- “I’ll get Leliana, shall I?”- leaving Zevran, Lavellan, and Solas. The Antivan’s clear brown eyes settle on Lavellan and are sad.

               “You’ll have to forgive her temper; you have my word that none of your companions will spontaneously end up dead tonight,” he says.”

               Lavellan shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

               Zevran gives her a pitying look. “There are exactly five humans in the world that Shae trusts, only two of which are men. One of them is dead. The other is Alistair.”

               “City elves are not forgiving to their abusers,” Solas murmurs, voice soft next to Lavellan.

               Zevran inclines his head in Solas’ direction. “She has been forced to choose her allies carefully, and her friends even more so.” Then he, too, turns and leaves.

               Lavellan sits down heavily on the last steps of the dais and looks up at Solas with searching eyes.

               “ _That_ was the Hero of Fereldan?” she manages an exhausted whisper. Solas lowers himself to crouch beside her and stares pensively at the hall doors.

               “That was someone in a great deal of pain. I suspect it cost her more than Leliana realizes to come here.”

               “More ‘insight from the Fade’?” Lavellan asks, and is ashamed of the bitter sting in her voice. All she wants to do is sleep. It’s been too long a day already and it’s barely noon.

               “No, vehnan,” he says, and places a gentle hand on the juncture between her shoulder and neck. “Merely a calculated guess.”

               “That… was no helpful,” Lavellan says. She reusts her head in both hands. Solas’ voice, when it comes, is tinged with amusement.

               “Then I am not your helpful advisor right now, I am your friend.”

               “Be my lover?” she lifts her head and places her hand over his. He lifts an eyebrow in surprise. “I’m tired, Solas. I just spent almost a fortnite fighting red templars in the Western Approach, and I’ve returned to find a new ally I’m not sure I can trust. I need a break, and good dreams.”

               He leans forward and presses a soft kiss to her temple. “Come, vehnan. This, I can do for you.”


	3. Backstory Dump

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tabris and Lavellan have a frank chat after the events of the Winter Palace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May or may not write a Winter Palace quest featuring the HoF. We'll see how the writing goblins feel.   
> In other news, this old writing is tense-consistent! Yay!

The Hero of Fereldan sits alone, feet swinging over empty air on the balcony, gloved hands wrapped around the stone railing. Despite the thousand-foot drop she doesn't look the slightest bit afraid.

"I know you're here to help," Lavellan begins. She takes a breath and tries not to wish she had her staff with her. "But-"

"I'm an unknown," Tabris cuts in, and turns to look at Lavellan with only slightly forgiving eyes. "You can't trust me or my motives, and you don't like my methods. I make you uncomfortable but you don't want to alienate me, so you must try to bring me closer. That’s why I’m here."

"I try not to hide things; this alliance will work better if you don’t, either,” Lavellan murmurs. Leaning against the balcony next to Tabris, she watches the way the assassin's fingers flex and relax their hold in time to the jerking swing of her feet. Her hood is down, the wind playing with her brown hair, out of its customary tail.

"That's because you're naive," Tabris responds without hesitation. "You don't have any masks."

"It's hard enough just being myself some days, let alone anyone else."

Tabris looks at her appraisingly. "Leliana and Alistair trust you. Even Morrigan seems to think you have some measure of wisdom. Ask me what you want and I'll answer as honestly as I can."

"Just like that?" It seems too easy for someone like Tabris.

 "Just like that."

Lavellan takes a moment to think. What question comes first? There are so many? Really though it all comes down to one question, the one that has kept Tabris at arm's length since the Winter Palace.

"Why do what you do? Why bring more death into this world?" she asks softly.

Tabris thinks for only a moment before replying to the empty air in front of her.

"Violence is a terrible thing, especially when wielded against those who can't defend themselves for one reason or another. When I was a child my mother made sure I knew how to defend myself, but I still hated the idea of having to hurt another living creature. It seemed like the smartest thing to do was for everyone to just avoid violence all together, so my lessons would be useless and I would never need them, because there was nothing in the world for me to fear," Tabris begins slowly. She pauses, though, and Lavellan can see the memories creeping up on her.

"What changed?"

"The son of the Arl of Denerim kidnapped me, my cousin, my soon-to-be sister-in-law, and two other women from the alienage. On my wedding day."

There is no emotion even close to touching Tabris' voice, but horror catches in Lavellan's chest and she has to squeeze the railing to keep from turning immediately back to the other elf. What a wretched thing. Creators, what a nightmare. Lavellan was raised knowing the dangers shemlen posed- especially men- but she cannot imagine this.

"Tabris..." There is nothing to say.

"Even with all my skills, I never once fought back, because I was more afraid of their anger than what they were planning to do to us. My cousin Soris came for us, though. He and my fiancé stormed the castle to reach us while I cowered." She takes a shaky breath, and that's when Lavellan notices the ring hanging from a chain around her neck. It's cheaply made and probably not even completely gold, but Tabris' fingers wind around it like it is more precious than her own heart.

"By the time we were free of the castle one of us was dead, Shianni had been raped and beaten within an inch if her life, and I had watched my fiancé killed right in front of me."

Lavellan feels sick. "The arl's son-"

Suddenly Tabris is turning to her, an empty smile curling her lips and an expression in her eyes that promises Lavellan there is not a drop of blood Tabris has spilled that she regrets. Especially not her first.

"-died like a pig, with my knife in his neck," she says savagely, hand forming a fist around the ring over her heart. "Duncan recruited me to the Wardens to spare me the Arl's justice. If I could go back and do it again, I would stab him a thousand times and make sure even his father wouldn't recognize him."

She means every word, of that Lavellan has no doubt. For the first time she is seeing something close to the heart of this woman who everyone only thinks of as the Hero. The truth of things is far uglier, and far bloodier. Tabris is no hero, nor is she a victim. She is a survivor who has devoted her life to ensuring history cannot repeat itself.

"That was your fiancé's ring, wasn't?" Lavellan murmurs, nodding towards the chain as Tabris' whole body relaxes. This time her lips soften. Something- something close to sadness mists across her eyes.

"Nelros." She says the name like a prayer. Is that how Lavellan sounds, when she talks about Solas?

"Did you love him?"

Tabris laughs softly. "Maker, no. I met him for the first time that morning, when he arrived in the alienage- when all I knew was that he was so handsome half the bridesmaids were swooning. But standing next to him, about to exchange vows... It was the first time I felt hope for my new life. Married to someone who had been instantly kind to me, and thought I was lovely, and promised to protect me and make me happy for the rest of our days. You Dalish don't understand how dangerous a city is for female elves, especially unmarried ones. I ended up taking this ring from his corpse."

"I'm so sorry, Tabris."

The assassin kicks back off the railing to land neatly at Lavellan's side. She gathers her windswept hair into a tail and says nothing for long enough that Lavellan worries she said the wrong thing.

"There are people in this world who need to die," she says at long last, gazing out over the mountains. "And there's strength in all of us that we have a responsibility to embrace. I kill people who need to die, for whatever reason my employer tells me, and I use every skill I have to make sure I am never made weak again. If that means spilling more blood, it's a price I'm willing to pay. Don't trust me- fine, but let me kill the people you need gone. An elven Inquisitor has the chance to change things. _Everything_. Use it."

Rather than wait for Lavellan's reply, she turns and strides from the balcony, leaving the Inquisitor alone.

 

There's a familiar itching burn in her forearms where they grabbed her, a rising nausea that tastes like fear and mid-afternoon horrors. It takes ten steps off the balcony for Shae to start running and not stop until she's jumped down a flight of stairs, vaulted past two servants, and ducked into a side-corridor still filled with cobwebs and rotting timbers. A part of Skyhold that no-one's gotten around to fixing.

Nelros' ring is cold cold cold. A frigid little ghost that sits next to her heart and reminds her with every beat what it took for her to get where she is. The lion behind her ribs is pacing as loud and heavy as thunder.

Where is Zevran? Where is her Crow? She needs-

_“Look at you!" Vaughn cooed, thick fingers tightening on her chin and jerking her forward. His friends watch with voyeuristic eyes and Shae knows that the girls behind her see her tears, hear her try desperately to suck down a sob. One of them is already dead. "Sweet thing, little mouse. Mousy bitch." The human men laugh. "Do you want to be first?" Maker, please._

Nothing. Tabris swallows, squeezes the ring tighter with one hand and reaches up with her other to press against Zevran’s earring until her fingers ache. She needs nothing and no-one and she can feed her lion just fine. No little mouse here. No knife-eared bitch.

_Breathe, Shae. Breathe._

Two minutes later she's screaming into her gloved hand, biting down on the leather so no-one will hear and check inside the small side closet. _Be still._ Vaughn is not here, there is no reason to sweat, to freeze, to feel her expression go empty once she peals the leather glove away from her mouth, breath hot and heavy. Swallowing, she struggles to bring anything to the surface, anything at all. But her face is blank as a slate of stone and her heart similarly walled off.

_I am a lion. I am a hero. I am the Reaper of the Antivan Crows, slayer of an Archdemon. Briala of Orlais fears me. I killed Vaughn and his friends like dogs and I don't regret any of it. Nelros did not deserve to die._

Tabris squeezes her eyes shut and tells herself, over and over, that being a lion is enough. It's been so long since just telling the story triggered this reaction in her. Then again, it's been so long since she told the story, period.

"Shae?" Her name sounds different in every mouth, but she has memorized it's every variation, every curling sound, when sounded by the lips that greet her now. Zevran kisses her forehead before pulling away and taking her hands in his. "What happened? What are you doing in here?"

Her Crow. Her dearest love and greatest weakness and the strength she shouldn't need.

"I told the Inquisitor," she says in complete monotone. If she isn't quiet now there is nothing to stop her from screaming again. "Everything."

Zevran's deadly arms are only tender when they curl around her. He pulls her away from the wall and presses her against his chest, honey-blonde hair soft against her cheeks. She reaches to tug lightly on his earring.

"If I could neatly assassinate your demons, you know I would," he says. "In a heartbeat I would have that pig on a Crow torture rack."

Her body wants to cry but she can't, and settles for clenching her fingers in the fabric of his tunic so tightly it has to be painful. Zevran just rests his forehead against hers and holds her closer.

"I know," she gasps, eyes squeezed shut against too many screaming ghosts. "I know."

It takes almost half an hour for her to feel again. To crawl out from behind her defensive walls and wipe the sheen of sweat from the back of her neck, and start to feel a little warm again in her lover's arms. It takes longer for her to pull on his earring to signal that she's ready to get up.

"Embarrassing," she mutters darkly into his shoulder as he helps her rise. Her legs shake and tingle awake. Zevran's strength is the only reason she doesn't collapse at all as they limp towards the end of the corridor. Right before they step into the light of inhabited Skyhold, however, Tabris holds him back.

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," he murmurs with a quick kiss. "You are beautiful, and dangerous, and sexy beyond belief. He is dead and you are not."

"I'm alive." Her throat is dry like alienage dust, but the strength is coming back to her. "He's dead and I'm not."

Zevran kisses her again, deeper this time, and it speaks of a burning desire that Tabris can feel down to her very bones. He wants her. He has wanted her when she was powerful, and he wants her now when she is weak. He will want her tomorrow, and every day after, and she can't be sure of her heart but she's reasonably certain she wants to spend the rest of her life with him.

What they have is good, is healthy. Tomorrow morning the lion will be stronger and this will all be forgotten.

For now they step into a hallway bustling with people, his arm around her waist and her fingers gripping his shoulder, and no-one who looks at them will realize that she's one "little mouse" from falling apart.

**Author's Note:**

> Next chapter is the HoF at Skyhold!


End file.
